Environment and land

As the National League for Democracy embarks on a volunteer program to keep the country’s streets clean, experts said that Yangon’s water quality is at risk because people keep throwing garbage into rivers, creeks and ditches. Keep reading ...

PetroVietnam Marine Shipyard JSC in the southern province of Ba Ria-Vung Tau, a subsidiary of PetroVietnam, launched a US$230-million jackup rig 13 December.   Tam Dao 05 weighs 18,000 tons and can drill to a depth of nine kilometers.   Keep reading ...

Vietnam is using its major rivers as dumping grounds or excavation sites, and this poses a risk of severe water shortage for tens of millions of people in the near future, experts warn.   Members of Vietnam Rivers Network (VNR), the country’s largest advocacy group for water ...

Pervasive human trafficking has helped turn Thailand into one of the world’s biggest shrimp providers. Despite repeated promises by businesses and government to clean up the country’s US$7 billion seafood export industry, an Associated Press investigation has found shrimp peeled by modern-day slaves is reaching ...

Myanmar’s National League for Democracy, which scored a stunning victory in November’s general election, carried out a litter collection drive over the weekend. Keep reading ...

Cambodia’s delegates are returning with mixed feelings about the agreement to try and save the planet from catastrophic climate change that was adopted on 12 December at the UN Climate Talks in Paris, known as COP21. In an email sent just before the treaty was adopted, government ...

Valuable woods are not subject to a resource tax decrease for fears it might unintentionally trigger worsening deforestation, voted the National Assembly’s Standing Committee (NASC) on 10 December. The debate on wood taxes was sparked as the NASC weighed in on the draft of the amended ...

Laos on 10 December officially exported its first batch of rice to China, marking the start of rice exportation to China. A ceremony on the event was held in Laos’ southern Savannakhet Province on 10 December. Addressing the ceremony, Lao Minister of Agriculture and Forestry Phet Phomphiphak said ...

Major hydropower projects like the large-scale dams under way in Cambodia’s waterways are a “false solution” to climate change, according to a global coalition of 300 NGOs who are calling on parties at UN climate talks in Paris (COP21) to bar such schemes from climate ...

Thai soldiers opened fire on a group of 17 illegal loggers on 10 December evening, wounding two, police said. The group had illegally crossed the border into Thailand in Oddar Meanchey province under cover of darkness when they encountered a Thai patrol, according to Brigadier General Men ...